Cork Pride 2012

I feel compelled to say that the gay pride march in Cork seems to have been given a bit of short shrift from the city. Cork isn’t that big and the route of the march not that long so I wonder why the authorities didn’t feel it would be a good idea to close the roads off for the short time it took for the parade to pass by.

The police (garda) seemed to think it was ok to just park their motorbikes in the middle of the road and ignore the traffic as it streamed into St Patrick Street, limiting the parade to a single lane between moving traffic and parked cars on the other side.

It’s hard work being a copper in Cork

While the people in the march were all having a great time, being extremely colourful and very noisy and the people lining the street were all enjoying it (between the passing cars) I thought it was a big shame.

Authorities and police aside, I also really want to say how lovely the actual organisers were. Especially John the steward. The Cork bus station no longer has a left luggage section so I had to drag my suitcase around with me. I felt like finding somewhere along the route and just sitting down but John and the barman at the 51st Bar sorted out some short term parking for my bag upstairs in the pubs storage area.

Being relieved of my burden meant we had a lot more freedom to have a couple of beers, wander up and down the street and generally feel an (albeit small) part of the festivities. And what fun it was! Well worth making the effort to attend, especially since it didn’t rain. Gay is such a good word to describe it.

Having a great time

The reason I had my bag with me was because we went into Cork on the bus and I was leaving from the city to the airport directly after the parade. So my farewells to Bridget were said at the Mallow bus stop after which JJ and I caught the bus into town.

We were joined on the bus by two girls, one of whom had a t-shirt which proudly announced she was 50% gay. Neither of us had any idea what this meant. JJ assumed it meant she was bi but I’m more inclined to think that the 50% division is physical. Whatever it meant, they were clearly going to the same thing we were. I don’t think the rest of the passengers were.

I love this t-shirt

In world terms, the Cork Pride is fairly small and the parade was passed us in quite a short period of time so we joined the end of it and ended up back in the 51st Bar to enjoy another beer and watch Andy Murray win the gold medal in the Olympic tennis.

The only way to wear pink – proudly!

It was all too soon time to collect my luggage and make my way back to the bus station and board a bus to Cork Airport for home. And so my week in Ireland with my cousin was over.

And it was a great week. I hope JJ enjoyed it as much as I did. She is a great travelling companion and wonderful company.

Thank you JJ, thank you Bridget, thank you Auntie Pat and thank you Margaret from Doneraile who calls me cousin Gary. Actually, thank you to Doneraile as well for making me feel like one of the family.